Duterte’s infrastructure rollout faces hurdles — property consultant
IT WOULD take the Duterte administration at least three years before the country starts to see the rollout of his massive infrastructure program, considering the regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles it faces, according to property consultancy Pronove Tai.
“From planning to actually getting from bidding, you have CoA (Commission on Audit) and all of this right of way (issues) that would take around three years. Now until 2020, it’s all planning. By the time he starts scratching the ground for his infrastructure it’s already 2020,” Pronove Tai Chief Executive Officer Monique Cornelio-Pronove said in a quarterly briefing in Makati on Wednesday.
“Then by the time it gets finished, that’s around three years to four years,” Ms. Pronove added, which means that the next president would have to oversee the projects’ completion.
The consultancy noted that any construction activities currently ongoing are still a spillover from the previous administration.
“The reality is, what you see right now where a lot of construction is being completed, that’s still a carry- over from the past administration. It cannot be that in one years’ time, he was able to build a bridge,” she said.
President Rodrigo R. Duterte earlier announced his plan of increasing infrastructure spending to P8.4 trillion in the next five years, which would bring its share to the country’s gross domestic product to 7.4% by 2022, up from 2016’s share of 4.7%.
The property consultancy noted that even when the projects are approved for construction, it would still have to deal with construction problems that currently hound the market, such as the lack of skilled labor.
Data from the Construction Industry Authority of the Philippines, an attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry, states that it expanded its work force to 3.3 million in 2016, adding 675,000 workers during the period.
This number, however, may still be insufficient to meet the demand needed by the robust private real estate sector alongside the government’s infrastructure boom.
“He can fast track it, by getting a lot of laborers, by putting in a lot of technology,” Ms. Pronove noted.
The company said that these problems are currently being addressed by the government by providing necessary training through the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, while private firms are tapping the labor force in the provinces to meet the demand in Metro Manila.
“If our people can actually do three jobs, why not? And the thing is we are already seeing, if you just look around there are already foreign companies doing construction, if there’s no more people. But the thing is our people need to be flexible,” Ms. Pronove said.